


Reliving Memories

by daftfear



Category: Avenger - Fandom, Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Comeplay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-22
Updated: 2016-06-22
Packaged: 2018-07-16 16:10:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7274800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daftfear/pseuds/daftfear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the fall of SHIELD, Steve finds all he's got left of Bucky is his memories. And he'd do anything to be able to give those back to Bucky. (Post-TWS fic)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reliving Memories

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still very new to this fandom, so I'm playing around a bit. Hope you enjoy!
> 
> This occurs between The Winter Soldier and Age of Ultron/Civil War. 
> 
> Also crossposted at my Tumblr [here.](http://13pawns.tumblr.com/post/146282614485/for-a-while-after-the-fall-of-shield-steve-still)

For a while after the fall of SHIELD, Steve still lives in the same apartment. He knows it’s stupid. Hydra gave him that apartment, even if it was branded SHIELD at the time. But it’s the closest thing to home Steve has known since the ice. Since the War. And SHIELD is dead now. And Hydra—well, Steve’s not too worried, if he’s honest.  
But if he’s really honest, Steve knows that neither SHIELD nor Hydra figured into his decision at all. He wasn’t worried about anything when he chose to go back, putty the bullet holes, replace the shattered windowpane, and clean up the blood. He was hopeful.  
This is the only place Bucky knows to find him.  
Months of searching for him came up empty. Months of jumping at the first ring of the phone, running down every hair-thin lead, and texting Natasha every day to check if she’d heard anything new. And Steve hates texting. Why not just dial the number instead of type out the message? Talking was faster…  
But all for nothing. Bucky either can’t be found, or doesn’t want to be.  
The ache in his chest forces Steve to believe the latter. And he can’t blame Bucky. Not after seeing what Hydra did to him. The Winter Soldier is a weapon, a brutal, ruthless killer. And Bucky was never those things. He was powerful and strong, Steve remembers well, but he was never ruthless. He was never a killer. Just a soldier, like everyone else. And like no one.  
He holds the curled, tarnished photograph in his hands, smoothing the edges again and again, looking into the face of his oldest, closest friend. Bucky smiles at him, in that crooked way, his hair short and swept to the side, his uniform crisp and pressed. This was before. Before he shipped out and left Steve behind. Before the serum. Before Captain America.  
Steve’s in the picture too, scrawny and small and barely taking up space. But Bucky grounds him in that time, in that moment captured on film. He is the anchor to Steve’s journey. Or maybe the compass. And yet the eyes that stare out at Steve, crinkled just slightly at the edges from his rakish smile, are the same eyes that were ringed in black and dark as Kristallnacht. The eyes that had seen the rise and fall of empires and made them happen.  
Steve pushes the photo aside, always on his nightstand, next to his cellphone and whatever book he’s currently reading. Catching up on seventy years of history and culture is harder than it sounds. He’s only just made it to the seventies. _The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy_ and _The Stand_ are both on his nightstand now, both cracked down the spine. He isn’t sure which he likes better, if he likes either, but he’s told they’re required reading. _The Stand_ is bloated and brick-like while _The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy_ is thin as a pamphlet. He finds himself wondering if Bucky’s read these books. Or any books.  
But the answer comes to him without thinking. There’s no point for a weapon to be well-read.  
Like so many nights, Steve lays back in bed, the mattress still not right because he can’t force himself to get used to it. Half the time he sleeps on the floor, or on the couch, nodding off to documentaries and movies Sam and Tony have shoved at him. The only way to start getting the references is to learn the material. Steve wriggles and tosses around in bed, trying to find a comfortable position, trying to make the bed give less, more lumpy, but it won’t ever be the same. What he wants is the bed he slept in next to Bucky growing up. The narrow, springy cot that poked him in the sides even though he was the only one light enough to sleep on it. He remembered spending late nights laughing and making stupid jokes into the darkness, talking about girls and cars and the new picture shows. Then talking about the War. Then, on late nights, in the darkest hours, when the rest of the world slept, Steve remembered talking about Bucky and Steve.  
The night after Pearl Harbor was the most vivid he remembers. There was silence for a long time between them. Though they were both old enough to have their own rooms, to sleep apart, to be men, they’d found themselves falling back on old habits in the wake of the news. The world was full of death and fire and anger. And for one night, before they walked out into the sun to volunteer to die, they let themselves be kids again.  
“What do you think it’ll be like?” Bucky asked, and Steve knew he was staring straight up at the ceiling. Steve was doing the same thing. They didn’t move at all, just gazed into the uncertainty ahead of them.  
“Muddy,” Steve said. “That’s what they said about the Great War, when they came back. I expect it’ll be hard.”  
“Thanks for the insight,” Bucky said with a laugh. “Who’d’ve known _war is hard_?”  
“Well, harder for you than me,” Steve added. “Hundreds of men all camped together. Food rations, nothing to drink, and not a woman in sight.” Steve made a low whistling sound. “I’m not really sure you’re up to that, Buck.”  
Bucky laughed, and a pillow came flying into Steve’s face. He flinched to the side and smiled, turning to find Bucky close, looking right at him. His eyes shone in the low light filtering through the curtains. Steve’s breath caught in his chest. Just the asthma.  
“I reckon I’ll be all right,” he said, “as long as I’ve got you.”  
Forcing the breath from his lungs, Steve said, “I’m with you ‘til the end of the line.”  
And Bucky moved closer, leaning over the narrow canyon between their beds, he pressed a hand down on the mattress next to Steve and rolled his cot closer. The fragile frame wheezed and whined until the mattresses touched. Steve looked up at Bucky, his heart hammering in his chest. Any number of his health conditions could be responsible for this. Or maybe this was a new one. Something causing hallucinations.  
But as Bucky leaned down, his palm now cupping Steve’s jaw, Steve realized Bucky was just as nervous. His thumb smoothed over Steve’s cheek and over his lips, and the thrumming pulse in his wrist played against Steve’s skin.  
The kiss was light and experimental, full of testing. It was tentative and slow, and probably terrible, but Steve only remembered it fondly. He remembered the gasping in his chest every time Bucky pulled away to try something new, and he remembered the flaring yearning in his stomach for that night to never end. And most of all, he remembered Bucky pressing against him, and his fingers in Bucky’s hair, and the creaking of the cot, and the fear that someone would somehow find them, though they were alone. He remembered the feeling of home and how it grew inside of Bucky.  
That’s the memory Steve pulls out when he needs to fall asleep. That’s the memory that puts him to sleep now, convincing himself that it could be again, that Bucky would find him. After all is said and done, after the War was won and lost, after the ice, after SHIELD, after Hydra—all Steve wants is to go back to that night, to that Bucky.  
He wakes, eyes wide and perfectly alert. Motionless, Steve counts out his breaths, fighting to keep them even. He knows he’s not alone in his room the way everyone does, the chill creeping up his back, the rabbiting heart rate, the fear. His eyes search out every angle of the room he can access from his position. He scours the dark shadows, the corners, the places to hide. He sees and feels no movement.  
The shield is between the bed and the nightstand, within grasp, as he’s taken to keeping it there since Fury was shot in this apartment. But reaching for the shield gives him away, and Steve needs to choose his moment. Heartbeats tick by, and Steve’s not sure how much time passes. He can smell the faint odor of smoke and grease, and as he listens, he hears the hiss of a knife.  
Steve launches the comforter with his legs as he launches to the side to pluck the shield from its position. In the midst of his turn, he rolls out of the bed, pulling the shield in front of him and back to the outer wall. A flash of silver and the quiet whoosh of hair, and the knife collides with the shield. Steve uses the blowback from the assault to throw his attacker back, but the man is more prepared than Steve is and grabs the edges of the shield.  
He pulls back as he falls onto the bed, dragging Steve with him in a tangle of limbs. Steve braces himself against the shield and pulls up a knee to catch himself. The man knocks his knee sideways and lurches over, rolling Steve back onto the mattress. The man yanks the shield from Steve’s grasp and throws it aside. Heart pounding in his ears, Steve takes the moment to throw a punch at the man’s shoulder to knock him off balance. But he catches Steve’s wrist and slams it down above Steve’ head, pinning the rest of Steve’s body with his own.  
Steve grapples with him, struggling to free himself but his hands are pinned above his head, and the man is straddling him, his legs hooked around Steve’s thighs. But being unable to move isn’t what stops Steve fighting.  
“Stop struggling,” the man says, and the voice echoes into Steve’s chest. He falls slack, his muscles loosening, but his heart continues to pound. The light from the window filter’s through the man’s long hair, drawing bright lines at the edges of his profile. And Steve’s mouth falls open.  
“Bucky,” he breathes, and Bucky tightens his grip on Steve’s wrists.  
“I have a memory,” Bucky says, and every word is full of fragile awe, as though a child entrusted with a crystal glass. “Of you.”  
Steve opens his mouth to answer, but he’s not sure what to say. So many things want to tumble out of his mouth. Which memory? Yes of course. Steve knows him. He knows Steve. Steve can give him so many more memories, so much time lost. But Steve says none of these things. He doesn’t even ask why Bucky pulled him from the water, or where he’s been all this time, or why he’s here now. Why he waited until night, until Steve was sleeping.  
Instead, Bucky takes the moment of silence and uses it to steal all of Steve’s words. As though reliving the memory, he leans down and presses his lips to Steve’s, and Steve feels like a boy again, young and determined to go to war, and taking comfort in his oldest friend.  
Though he wants to, though every fiber of his being cries for him to do it, Steve doesn’t tilt his head up into the kiss. He doesn’t move much at all, except to kiss back, slowly and gently, and he tries to savor the taste of Bucky on his lips. After all this time.  
Bucky pulls back, his expression almost unchanged from before, except now there’s a brightness in his eyes. “We’ve done that before,” he says, and Steve nods imperceptibly.  
“Yes,” he whispers, because he needs to say it aloud.  
For a moment, they are silent, and Steve stops himself, several times, from breaking it. If Bucky needs to come back to him like this, in secret and at night, with all the cards and all the control, then Steve will let him. If it means getting Bucky back—Steve will do anything.  
Bucky presses down for another kiss, and Steve answers him this time, lifting his head to deepen it, sliding his tongue out to flick at the seam of Bucky’s lips and ease them apart. Bucky lets him, pulls him in, devours him. His hands are tight as ever on Steve’s wrists, the metal of his hand surreally smooth against Steve’s skin. It’s warm, though. Surprisingly so. And Steve forces his hands to relax, trying to show Bucky he’s no threat. He would never hurt Bucky.  
Soon Bucky releases his wrists, his hands travelling down Steve’s arms to his face, to his neck. He cups Steve’s jaw as he did once before, brushing his thumb over Steve’s cheek. The metal arm curls and his fingers burrow into Steve’s hair, pulling him up to cement the embrace. Bucky’s hair falls over Steve’s eyes but he doesn’t care. He reaches up slowly, gently, placing his hands at Bucky’s waist, then up his back, soothing and encouraging.  
Yes, this is what he wants, who he wants. This is how you break in a mattress. Bucky’s feet unhook from Steve’s legs, and he spreads himself wide over Steve, grinding his hips into Steve’s. The hard bulge of Bucky’s erection presses mercilessly to Steve’s, and Steve pants into the kiss, sliding his tongue over Bucky’s. He tastes of fruit and coffee, and his clothes smell faintly of smoke and grease, as though he’s been somewhere infused with the smell, but not for long.  
Bucky rolls his hips into Steve’s, and the glorious friction, pressure it creates in Steve’s cock make him moan. His chest is tight, his heart filled to bursting with the wanting, and Steve raises himself slowly, one hand snaking up to grab a fistful of Bucky’s hair. But Bucky forces him back down, his head snapping against the pillow, wind knocked from his chest. Bucky looks down at him, studying his face, and Steve only pants up at him, waiting for him to decide.  
There’s a moment of shifting and adjusting, and Bucky’s flung off his shirt and kicked out of his jeans, now hovering naked over Steve. Eyes roving over the length of Bucky, Steve takes in the sight of him, thick and heaving and gorgeous. The scarring around his shoulder where the metal meets skin is thick and wrangled, but he’s otherwise mostly as Steve remembers him—perfect.  
Bucky says nothing as he studies Steve, then he pulls roughly at the waistband of Steve’s pyjama pants and exposes Steve’s throbbing cock. Desperate not to spook Bucky, Steve smooths his palms over Bucky’s thighs, massaging the skin. Bucky licks his lips, as though he can’t stop himself doing it, and places himself over Steve. His hand encircles Steve’s cock, holding it in place as Bucky supports himself with the metal hand. But as he descends, pressing the head of Steve’s erection to his hole, Steve has to stop him.  
“Wait,” he says, and Bucky freezes, eyes wide and searching Steve’s face. “Not dry. It’ll hurt you.” He glances up to the nightstand. “In there. There’s a bottle you can use.”  
Bucky says nothing but releases Steve’s cock and lifts up to pull open the drawer. Steve counts out his breaths, trying to calm his hunger for Bucky, his urgency, while Bucky pulls out the bottle of lubricant and coats his hand.  
“Let me?” Steve asks. Bucky considers him, and Steve wonders if it’s too much, but Bucky offers him the bottle. Steve pours some out onto his fingers and slides his hand between Bucky’s legs, trailing lightly along his balls and back toward his entrance. He probes gently at it, slowly pressing one finger past the ring of muscle. Bucky tenses, his body shaking from the effort. Steve massages Bucky’s leg and sides and everywhere he can reach with his other hand. “It gets better.”  
But Bucky shoots him a look, defiant and determined, and forces himself to sink down onto Steve’s finger, taking the length of it in one motion. He’s so hot and tight, and Steve nearly loses it there. Instead, he drives all his energy toward Bucky, to making him feel good, to giving him the pleasure he should have gotten every day of his life. He slides his finger in and out, slowly and carefully, then crooks the end slightly, and Bucky tilts his head back.  
Steve tries a second finger, stretching Bucky as cautiously as he can, and Bucky sinks down, again, onto Steve’s hand. Then a third finger, and Steve knows he’s ready. He slips his fingers out and grasps the base of his cock, holding it straight beneath Bucky’s ass.  
Bucky presses both hands to Steve’s chest and lowers himself down, impaling himself on Steve’s cock. The tightness is nearly blinding, and for a moment, Steve worries his super-soldier endurance will fail him. But when the moment passes and his head clears, he’s buried balls-deep in Bucky, and Bucky’s rolling his hips again, lifting himself off Steve and thrusting back down. Steve grips Bucky’s hips, arcing his back up to meet Bucky’s bouncing movements, and Steve is panting and pumping into Bucky faster and harder, watching Bucky’s face with every motion.  
Then he moans. Bucky moans, loud and deep, and throws his head back and bounces faster, harder, driving Steve deeper still inside of him. And the lube drips down his cock, onto his balls, and slaps up again as Steve fucks Bucky steadily, brilliantly.  
Bucky matches his pace, fighting to get Steve’s cock deeper into him, his fingers curled against Steve’s chest, digging into his skin. Bucky’s mouth is open, his plump lips red and wet from licking them, and Steve wants to kiss him again. He lifts himself up and pulls Bucky into a kiss, capturing his lower lip between Steve’s teeth. Steve nibbles and sucks and kisses Bucky, his chest feeling as though it’s going to explode with every passing second.  
God, yes, this is what he’s wanted. This is what he wanted that night before they enlisted. This is what Steve has wanted every day since he woke up in the new millennium, alone and lost and alive. He’s wanted Bucky, wanted to kiss him and taste him and fuck him. He’s wanted to make love to Bucky as Bucky’s never been loved before.  
Soon Steve is near the edge, so close he can taste it on his tongue, and it tastes like Bucky. He wraps a hand around Bucky’s cock, pulling and twisting his wrist quickly, roughly, until Bucky comes, his head thrown back, his mouth open wide. Thick, hot jets of come splatter onto Steve’s chest and stomach, and he thrusts up once, twice more before burying himself deep in Bucky as he orgasms. He comes so hard he feels Bucky shudder, his entire body shaking from the force of it.  
Then Steve relaxes, lays his head back on the pillow, and watches Bucky. He’s leaning forward on Steve, his chest heaving, his hair falling in sheets around his face. Without thinking, Steve reaches up to brush back Bucky’s hair, only to find his wrist caught in a metal hand. Bucky looks at him, still breathing hard, and leans down for a kiss. Their lips press together slowly, sensually, leaving promises and lingering memories, and then Bucky pulls away.  
He lifts himself off Steve, letting the semen dribble out of him and down his leg, and pulls on his pants. He tugs on his shirt and shoes and makes for the door.  
“Bucky, wait,” Steve says, sitting up, one arm out to stop him. He can’t just leave. He can’t. Steve needs him to stay. He’ll help Bucky. He—needs Bucky.  
Bucky casts him a look over his shoulder, his indiscernible mask back in place. “Stop looking for me,” he says. And he’s gone.  
In the morning, when Steve searches for the well-worn photo of himself and Bucky, the one he keeps on the nightstand, he finds it, too, is gone.


End file.
